Soft Glow
by messymind
Summary: …There's always been something special about the quiet hours in the early morning when the world is still asleep and there's a gentle breeze from the sea, it's a feeling of euphoria that can heal even the most wounded of hearts. And it's in those moments with her Pirate the Emma Swan is most at peace…


**Soft Glow...**

**A/N: A CS One Shot.. I don't know what this is …but the idea wouldn't leave me …so here have some of my left over CS feels from the finale….I don't own anything.**

In the quiet hours of the morning before the sun is about to rise for the day, she feels him start to stir beside her and in the stillness she can almost hear the wheels in his brain start to turn. The soft sound of waves crashing on the shore waft in from the patio door that they left open the night before, neither caring about the chill hanging in the air. Her apartment is home now and it's cozy and the life their building together is everything she was afraid to hope for and all the things she didn't think she could have.

She gives him a moment more before she snuggles into his broad chest, breathing in that smell that is uniquely him, now her mixed together, and lets out a huff

"Are you going to tell me what you're thinking about or just stew on it some more?"

His chuckle vibrates in his chest and she can't help but smile, they both know each other too well and something is weighing on him.

"I…Emma…can I ask you something love?" his voice almost sounds hesitant like he's afraid, as if he's afraid she'll say no he can't, like he's scared he'll spook her. She lets her lips ghost over his chest as her heart stops for a minute …it's too soon…it can't be that…do I want it to be that?…her mind races a hundred different ways before a simple "yes…always…anything," passes her lips.

His arms circle tighter around her and she lets her jade eyes lift and meet his deep blue ones.

"Back in the past….why did you…I mean if you thought I'd be gone off the Jolly, why did you go back with me or I mean him?"

She laughs again and it almost has a hollow sound laced with disappointment, like she was waiting with bated breath and now it's like she's breathing for the first time…and she's oddly letdown that it's not the question she thought it was…one that maybe …just maybe she was hoping it would be. And then she starts

" I don't really know, I mean it was easy with him, in the tavern. It was you, even if it wasn't and it was us and it just felt easy, especially without any of the real complications that have made us , us. It was a freedom that we never really got when we met; to flirt, to just let it be easy. I just fell into it really and when he asked if I'd join him or if he should find someone else, I don't know …I guess …I mean I'm under no disillusion that he was a saint before the curse hit and that he didn't leave a broken heart at a few ports but I just kept thinking about how much you cared for me, even if you'd not spoken the words yet and that …well I just didn't want you to go back with anyone else and that for that night in your past you were just mine and that I was yours and that we were together …I didn't honestly know what I was going to do when we got back to that ship, I mean it would have been easy to forget who you were then and who I was and scratched that itch, especially since I was deluding myself that I was going to go back to New York still. I wouldn't have though, I mean it would have been easy and believe me he was more than willing but it would have been wrong and it would have hurt you and it wasn't fair to who you have become…the hero…the pirate…you're both and you're the man that I love."….."Why?"

She can feel his face buried in her hair than breathing her in…"After …some nights in my dreams ..that I remember now, I remember the smell of you wafting through my senses and golden hair and a feeling …a feeling that I didn't feel again until you found me in those bodies, I guess I wondered if she…you had felt it too."

"So I guess in a sense we were both a little jealous of our past selves," it's a fact more than a question and while her tone is light there is a mask of sadness as she thinks of all the good moments they could have had if they had met under different circumstances but fate is fate and they have more good moments now than bad ones and more importantly now they have a future that is them together. She's never been really good at opening up, being vulnerable but with him that's changed, because she's safe and she trusts him and he's hers now but the trip to the past made it clear that he always was, that even before she was born he was meant for her and so she's not afraid to open up her heart to him.

"But oddly I just felt like you were mine…no matter the you or the time or the place, that you belonged to me and I guess that I belonged to you…and yes I felt it…I" and she chuckles "I felt it every moment we first met…in the trip to the past, at the encampment and then again when you first found me in New York, it's you …it's always been you, been us."

His deep blue eyes catch hers and his eyebrow quirks and there is a hint of a tease in his voice "Emma, love why did you sound disappointed at my question?" "Were you expect….." She silences him quickly with a deep kiss to his lips and then peppers down his neck and his chest and his words die in his throat.

….

Later after they've both been sated…and then yet again… and then just before the sun finally rises, she walks out on their bedroom patio…sheet tied loosely around her and he joins her…coffee in hand …they share a giant cup every morning that she doesn't have to work and stare at the ocean together…and that's when she looks down at the sand , several soft white candles lit in the half-light of the morning ..and the words spelled out deep in the sand…..that she lets the breath she didn't know she was holding go ….

Marry Me….


End file.
